Mansa K. Mussa is a visual artist, arts educator, and arts consultant. He has used the camera to document the unfolding of human events in the United States, the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe for the past 39 years. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Media Arts/Television from New Jersey City University and studied visual art with noted artist Ben Jones.

He is best known as a documentary photographer and collagist, and his body of work includes The Art of Dance; Cuba Diary: A Glimpse Inside the Hidden Republic 1987-2014; Ghana: An African Portrait; Eyewitness: The New South Africa; Postcards from Paris and Italy; and the historic Newark: A Day in the City Photo Documentary. His photographs and collages have been exhibited in numerous solo and group exhibitions and published in several books, including the landmark Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers, 1840 to the Present.

Mussa performed on the concert dance stage as a company member and soloist for 28 years with a host of African dance companies, including the Black Dance Club of Jersey City State College, Newark’s African Dance Society, the Sulaimaan Dance Company (which he founded with Ben Jones, and the late L. Sulaimaan Wilson), the International Afrikan-American Ballet, Umoja Dance Company, Sankofa Dance Company, Africa in Motion, Opus Dance Theatre, and Zawaidi African Dance Company.

As a dance instructor for 24 years, he taught traditional African Dance from the 13th-century Old Mali empire for the Alvin Ailey Arts in Education program and the Alvin Ailey Professional Performing Arts School. Mussa has been an instructor of photography and visual arts for 36 years.

His most recent served as curator for exhibit The Strong Men II, which will be on view at the Jewish Museum of New Jersey in March 2017. He serves on the Boards of the West Orange Arts Council, the 1978 Maplewood Arts Center, and the Wofabe Council of Dancers and Drummers.